Textile: Interactive Fabric Made of Thousands of Computer Keys

TEXTile is an interactive art piece made of nearly 23,000 computer keycaps, fabric, a projector, and custom software. Viewers can type messages that become a part of the project itself.

Here’s how it works: “In this interactive sculpture, thousands of recycled keyboard keys are embedded into a continuous textile. The keys spell out a line-by-line transcript of the email correspondence between the artist and fabricators regarding the creation of the artwork. As a result, the sculpture documents its own making. Viewers can also type their own messages on the active keys amid the first three rows of emails. These new messages are then projected onto the opposite end of the fabric, thereby continuing the virtual dialogue.”

TEXTile was made by Jean Shin, and can be found at the Permanent Collection of Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. You can see more pictures at Jean Shin’s website.

I’m feeling pretty bummed right now because I was just on the East Coast and I didn’t yet know about this. It looks like it would be insanely fun to see, touch, and play around with!